Health
This afternoon's debate is about the health system, and I think it is really important that we have this debate. Senator Fierravanti-Wells, in her expressive speech, gave some chronology of what has been going on. There were some things-through you, Mr Deputy President-in Senator Fierravanti-Wells's contribution with which I agreed. She had some documents that were produced by the government. I do believe they are accurate, because I have seen them before. I note that she talked about the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, which this government put into place, as it had promised during the election campaign, in the first few months of its term. The Rudd government put that into place as it had promised the community it would do. It acknowledged something that all of us had been hearing-that was another thing that I agreed with Senator Fierravanti-Wells about-as people had been talking about the health system, saying that there needed to be change. That is absolutely the rationale behind the process that the Rudd government and now the Gillard government have been putting into place, despite the extreme attempts by people from the other side of this chamber to put up every obstruction possible. From the very day that the Health and Hospitals Reform Commission was announced the opposition was saying that it should not happen, it would not work and that they would not be supporting it.
Every step along the way there have been arguments from the opposition. Certainly, there must be arguments about where we go for the best result for our health system, but every attempt to move forward in this area has been seen by the opposition as some kind of threat or reason to which they are philosophically opposed. That has come out through various debates in this place. As key aspects of the changes have come here for debate the opposition has consistently voted against them. In this debate about the whole area of health reform we know what the discussion is going to be before we stand up. Whatever the government says the opposition will disagree with; whatever we say will be passed away as some kind of symbol or as something that has no hope.
One of the things that seem to be most offensive to the opposition is the attempt that the government has made to work with and listen to the local community. We consistently hear raised the concern that the then Prime Minister and the minister for health, a person whose name and position seem to concern Senator Fierravanti-Wells greatly, actually visited hospitals across this country. They actually talked with people who worked in hospitals-with appropriate approvals-and spoke with people who were using the services of the hospitals. And sometimes they had their photos taken. That is the absolute joke. Under the circumstances I think it would have to be a first in Commonwealth government history: politicians were actually in the community, having told the community they would be there and what they were going to be doing when they visited, and then had their photographs taken, which later appeared on a website. I have not checked this afternoon how many hits there have been on that website, but I know a large number of them have been by members of the opposition, because they seem to keep a very close tally of how many photographs have been taken and where they were taken. They also seem to have a keen obsession with what the then Prime Minister and the minister for health were wearing on the day. I have to admit: that is something in which I cannot share because I do not know exactly what garb the people were wearing, but I do know that every time a visit was made to a hospital approval was sought beforehand. There are constant barbs about the fact that they were in medical gear, which would have been for the basic reason that that is what you should be wearing when you are in a specialised area.
Moving on from that, I need to respond, because so often in these discussions on this issue we get down to the process that was used by the government. Post the health and hospital reform commission hearings, people from the government have reinforced that by going out and listening to what people think. There are a number of forums across Australia, all I believe on the website. A number of methods are also used, one of which was the surveys. Once again, that was only one aspect of the strategy. In terms of where the government is going, from the start of this process a key element of the strategy for our health system was a cooperative arrangement through the pre-existing process that we have operated in this country for many years, the COAG system. This arrangement is between the state, territory and federal governments and is intended to develop a better response to issues in our health system. That was a key plank.
That is not an easy process. While I have never been there, I know that consistently there have been difficulties in the way that people have put claims forward and so on. There is a COAG meeting coming up next week. That could be the stimulus for this discussion in the chamber this afternoon. The COAG process is a tough process. What we need to have and what must occur is a form of national agreement. Towards the end of the last term of government an agreement was reached. There was a process of exchange between the GST and the funding of hospitals. That was but one element of the whole health reform process. That needs to continue to be discussed so that settlement can be reached. Every COAG meeting that I am aware of has had this as a key agenda item. That discussion, robust and difficult as it will be, will continue next week.
Over the last four years-since this Labor government has been in place-a number of things have been achieved. One of them that has had consistent opposition from those opposite is progress in electronic health. That was a key element of the health reform process identified in the health and hospitals reform review. It has been consistently discussed in this place. A number of Senate inquiries into it, some of which I have been involved in, have looked at the role that electronic changes will necessarily make to the future of our health system. There has been enormous progress in this area. This must continue. The first step has been made. A Senate committee examined this and it has gone through this chamber. That is one element that has been agreed to and which will be moved forward. But consistently there has been opposition from those opposite. They seem to take a philosophical approach rather than look at the issues that have come out in the range of consultations across the country.
One of the key aspects of the health changes has been a concentration on workforce issues. That has been going on in the short time that I have been here across a range of governments. We need to look at the way that the people who work in this system-those of all health professions-need to have a national registration process, a high skills level, consistent resources for training processes and a recommitment to the range of skills necessary to ensure that we have the best possible health system that we can get. These issues were again clearly raised through the health and hospitals reform process and also through local consultations. These were not people being talked at; rather, this was people who care about our health system sharing what they think should happen. That is the best possible way in which consultation can happen. The identification of workforce needs continues. The government has introduced a range of things over the last four years to directly address that. This includes scholarships, training and lifting the caps on GP numbers. That last thing was one of the things that we committed to in the first few days of our government, and that happened. What we are doing is working with the universities, colleges, professional groups and those entities being established to register workers in these areas to ensure that there is a cooperative arrangement across the states and territories.
The opposition make statements about how things have failed because the processes are moving slowly. There is no doubt that things are moving slowly, but changes in health systems do move slowly; they have done that consistently. I remind people on the other side of the chamber about the series of questions that we asked of then government ministers-in particular Minister Patterson-about what was occurring in the health system in those days. There were serious problems. We need to look at what is currently on the table and the structural changes that have been made and move forward. Perhaps we can all then have our photographs taken and put up somewhere for all of us to look at. (Time expired)
